Multiparty voice and/or video calls need to be conferenced together in order for all parties to hear/see each other. Conventionally, two forms of digital conferencing exist, client-server and Peer-to-Peer.
With a conventional conference server (FIG. 2), each client establishes connections with server. The server handles stream transmission to indicated clients In the event that there are a large number of participants on the conference, this may tax the resources of the conference server and possibly degrade the quality of the conference.
With conventional Peer-to-Peer conferencing (FIG. 1) each client sends their media to each other client in the conference and receives media from each other client in the conference. Thus, if there are three clients in the conference then each client is sending two streams and receiving two streams (there is no need for a client to send or receive a stream from/to itself). If there are X clients in the conference, then each client is sending X−1 streams and receiving X−1 streams. No conference server is required for Peer-to-Peer conferencing.
A conventional Hybrid Conference is defined as a combination of the above. Typically, in a hybrid conference call situation, clients will determine whether to employ peer-to-peer or client-server technology based on bandwidth availability. However, this is a reactive solution rather than a proactive solution.
It would be advantageous to provide systems and methods for configuring a conference call, which automatically selects peer-to-peer or client-server protocols based on a relative location of a client connecting to the call. It would be further advantageous to provide such systems and methods which automatically select peer-to-peer for clients on a common local network or subnetwork and client server for clients on different local networks or subnetworks.